Windows Server 2019

Feature comparison summary

Contents
Windows Server 2019—the operating system that bridges on-premises and Azure services ...................... 2
How to use this comparison guide ....................................................................................................................................... 2
Comparison matrix ...................................................................................................................................................................... 2
Unique hybrid capabilities with Azure ............................................................................................................................ 2
Unprecedented Hyper-converged Infrastructure ....................................................................................................... 3
Enhanced security capabilities ........................................................................................................................................... 7
Faster innovation for applications .................................................................................................................................... 9
Get Started ....................................................................................................................................................................................10

© 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. The information in this document represents the current view of 1
Microsoft on the content. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.
Windows Server 2019—the operating system that bridges on-
premises and Azure services
Windows Server 2019 is the operating system that bridges on-premises environments with Azure
services, enabling hybrid scenarios that maximize existing investments. Increase security and reduce
business risk with multiple layers of protection built into the operating system. Evolve your datacenter
infrastructure to achieve greater efficiency and scale with Hyper-converged Infrastructure (HCI). Enable
developers and IT pros to create cloud native applications and modernize their traditional apps using
containers and micro-services.

How to use this comparison guide

This comparison guide is intended for CXOs, business decision makers, technical decision makers,
solution architects, and IT pros. It compares selected features of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2,
Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, and Windows Server 2019. Its goal is to help
customers understand the differences between the Windows Server version they are running today
and the latest version available from Microsoft.

Comparison matrix
This comparison matrix covers different capability areas and underlying features of Windows Server
versions. The matrix includes a brief definition for each feature, as well as a notation about how well
each feature is supported across different Windows Server versions. The legend for this notation is
given in the following table.

Level of feature support

Feature Not supported Partially supported Fully supported

Feature name: Feature

definition

Unique hybrid capabilities with Azure

Extend your datacenter to Azure to maximize existing investments and gain new hybrid capabilities.

The move to the cloud is a journey and often takes a hybrid approach, one that combines on-
premises and cloud environments. With its hybrid cloud capabilities, Microsoft takes a future-proof,
long-term approach—which is exactly why we see it playing a central role in cloud strategies for the
foreseeable future. With Windows Server 2019, you will be able to easily integrate a comprehensive
set of Azure services, such as Azure Backup, Azure File Sync, disaster recovery, and much more,
without disrupting your applications and infrastructure.

Windows Windows Windows Windows

Feature and description Server Server Server Server
2008 R2 2012 R2 2016 2019
Storage Migration Service: helps to inventory and
migrate data, security, and configurations from
legacy systems to Windows Server 2019 and/or
Azure.

© 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. The information in this document represents the current view of 2
Microsoft on the content. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.
 Windows Windows Windows Windows
Feature and description Server Server Server Server
2008 R2 2012 R2 2016 2019

Synchronizing file servers to Azure: centralize

your organization's file shares in Azure Files while
keeping the flexibility, performance, and
compatibility of an on-premises file server.

System Insights: brings local predictive analytics

capabilities native to Windows Server. These
predictive capabilities, each backed by a machine-
learning model, locally analyze Windows Server
system data to provide high-accuracy predictions
that help reduce the operational expenses
associated with reactively managing Windows
Server instances.

Azure network adaptor: easily connects to Azure

virtual networks. Windows Admin Center performs
the heavy lifting of configuring the VPN to a new
network adapter that will connect Windows Server
2019 to a point-to-site Azure virtual network VPN.

VM protection: replicates workloads running on

physical and virtual machines (VMs) from a
primary site to a secondary location.

Unprecedented Hyper-converged Infrastructure

Evolve your datacenter infrastructure to achieve greater efficiency and security.

HCI is one of the latest trends in the server industry. According to IDC, the HCI market grew by 64% in
2016, and Gartner predicts that it will be a $5 billion market by 2019. With its HCI capabilities,
Microsoft consolidates software-defined computing, storage, and networking into one cluster to
provide high-performance, cost-effective, easily scalable virtualization. Microsoft partnered with
industry-leading hardware vendors to provide an affordable yet extremely robust HCI solution with
validated design. In Windows Server 2019, Microsoft is building on this platform by adding scale,
performance, and reliability, as well as the ability to manage HCI deployments to simplify
management and day-to-day activities.

Windows Windows Windows Windows

Feature and description Server Server Server Server
2008 R2 2012 R2 2016 2019
Unified management: Windows Admin Center is
a browser-based HCI remote management
interface that includes software-defined network
configuration and monitoring.
Storage Spaces: protect your data from drive
failures and extend storage over time as you add
drives to your servers.

© 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. The information in this document represents the current view of 3
Microsoft on the content. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.
 Windows Windows Windows Windows
Feature and description Server Server Server Server
2008 R2 2012 R2 2016 2019
Enhanced Storage Spaces Direct (S2D): build
software-defined storage using industry standard
servers with local storage that can scale up to
1PB per storage pool in Windows Server 2016
and 4PB per storage pool and 64TB per volume
in Windows Server 2019.
Mirror-accelerated parity: lets you create
volumes that are part mirror and part parity for
2x better performance on storage spaces direct
deployments. Writes land first in the mirrored
portion and are gradually moved into the parity
portion.
Nested Mirror Accelerated parity: enables two-
node clusters at the edge to survive multiple
simultaneous failures.
Storage class memory: support for new
generation of server hardware including storage
class memory, which drastically improves
performance for server applications.
USB thumb drive (as cluster witness): support
for USB thumb drive as cluster witness allows
true 2 node HCI deployments, with no additional
dependencies.
Storage Replica: provides storage-agnostic,
block-level, and asynchronous and synchronous
replication between servers for disaster recovery,
and allows stretching of a failover cluster for
high availability.
Storage Quality of Service (QoS): uses policies
to define and monitor storage input/output
minimums and maximums for VMs to enable
consistent performance across VMs.
Data deduplication: provides volume savings of
up to 90% by storing duplicate files on a volume
once using logical pointers. Windows Server
2019 add support for deduplication with ReFS
volumes.
Deduplication for ReFS: data deduplication is
now supported on ReFS to optimize free space
on a volume by examining the data for
duplicated portions.
Virtual machine storage resiliency: provides
intelligent means to retain VM session states to
minimize the impact of minor storage
disruptions.

© 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. The information in this document represents the current view of 4
Microsoft on the content. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.
 Windows Windows Windows Windows
Feature and description Server Server Server Server
2008 R2 2012 R2 2016 2019
Cloud Witness: enables Azure blob storage as a
witness in a quorum for a stretched cluster.
Additionally, in Windows Server 2019 you can
now create a file share witness that does not
utilize the Cluster Name Object (CNO), but
simply uses a local user account on the server
the FSW is connected to.
Storage health monitoring: provides continuous
monitoring, reporting, and maintenance to
support storage spaces directly.
Cluster-wide monitoring: monitors memory and
CPU usage, storage capacity, IOPS, throughput,
and latency in real time with clear alerts when
something's not right.
Cluster sets: allows you to create large scale-out
clusters with greater flexibility (deploying and
retiring clusters) without sacrificing resiliency.
Cluster OS rolling upgrade: enables an
administrator to seamlessly upgrade the
operating system of nodes in a failover cluster
from Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows
Server 2016 to Windows Server 2019.
Mixed OS mode cluster: enables Windows
Server 2012 R2 cluster nodes to operate with
Windows Server 2016 nodes.
Site-aware failover clusters: groups nodes in
stretched clusters based on physical location,
enhancing key cluster-lifecycle operations such
as failover, placement policies, heart-beating
between nodes, and quorum behaviour.
Persistent memory: support for persistent
memory (PM) technology provides byte-level
access to non-volatile media while also reducing
the latency of storing or retrieving data
significantly.
Linux and FreeBSD workloads: enables most of
the Windows Server software-defined datacenter
features for Linux and FreeBSD guests running
on Hyper-V for increased functionality,
performance, and manageability.
Hot add and remove for disk, memory, and
network: add or remove a network adapter and
adjust the amount of memory assigned while the
VM is running, without any interruption. The
memory adjustment capability works even when
you have dynamic memory turned on for a
Hyper-V host.

© 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. The information in this document represents the current view of 5
Microsoft on the content. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.
 Windows Windows Windows Windows
Feature and description Server Server Server Server
2008 R2 2012 R2 2016 2019
Network controller: provides a centralized,
programmable point of automation to manage,
configure, monitor, and troubleshoot virtualized
network infrastructure in your datacenter.
Virtual networking: helps create network
overlays on top of a shared multi-tenant physical
fabric.
Software load balancer (SLB): a cloud-optimized
Layer 3 and Layer 4 load balancer that provides
both North-South and East-West load balancing.
Virtual network peering: provides high speed
connectivity between two virtual networks.
Traffic between the virtual networks goes
through the underlying fabric network with no
gateway. Both virtual networks must be part of
the same datacenter stamp.
Distributed firewall and micro-segmentation:
dynamically segment networks based on
evolving security or application needs using a
stateful firewall and network security groups.
Hybrid SDN gateways: multi-tenanted, highly
available gateways that connect customer virtual
networks to Azure, other Windows Server-
powered clouds, high speed WANs, and local
non-virtualized resources.
Improved SDN gateway: improvements up to 3x
for GRE tunnels and IPSec site-to-site VPN.
Converged RDMA: converge RDMA storage
traffic and tenant Ethernet traffic on the same
underlying NIC team for significant cost savings,
while also getting the desired throughput and
quality of service.
Precision Time Protocol (PTP): PTP enables
network devices to add the latency introduced
by each network device into the timing
measurements, thereby providing a far more
accurate time sample than Network Time
Protocol (NTP).
Leap Second: support for leap seconds
(occasional 1-second additions to UTC to adjust
as earth’s rotation slows) increases accuracy,
compliance, and traceability.
HTTP/2: support for HTTP/2 (RFC 7540) in the
native HTTP server. Now, Windows Server 2019
delivers performance and security benefits to
your website deployments with HTTP/2.

© 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. The information in this document represents the current view of 6
Microsoft on the content. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.
 Windows Windows Windows Windows
Feature and description Server Server Server Server
2008 R2 2012 R2 2016 2019
Latency Optimized Background Transport -
LEDBAT: with Windows Server 2019, we bring a
latency optimized, network congestion control
provider, Low Extra Delay Background Transfer
(LEDBAT). LEDBAT is designed to automatically
yield bandwidth to users and applications, while
consuming the entire bandwidth available when
the network is not in use.
IP address management (IPAM) and DNS: IPAM
now supports comprehensive DNS and DHCP
management with role-based access control
across multiple AD forests. DNS provides for
traffic management, load balancing, split-brain
deployments, and prevention of DNS
amplification attacks.
MultiPoint services role: enables low cost-per-
seat by allowing multiple users to run their own
sessions while connected to one machine.
High-availability RDS connection broker: helps
create a fault-tolerance connection broker for
Remote Desktop Services (RDS) scenarios.
SDN with IPv4/IPv6: software defined
networking (SDN) provides a method to centrally
configure and manage physical and virtual
network devices. Additionally, Windows Server
2019 now supports IPv6 and dual stack IPv4/IPv6
addressing as well.

Enhanced security capabilities

Elevate your security posture by protecting the datacenter starting with the operating system.

Security continues to be a top priority for organizations. The number of cyber-security incidents
continues to grow, and the impact of these incidents is escalating quickly. Microsoft continues its
journey to help customers improve their security posture. Windows Server has a three-fold approach
for security—protect, detect, and respond. Windows Server 2019 gives you new and enhanced
capabilities to help prevent attacks and detect suspicious activity, with features to control privileged
access, help protect VMs, and harden the platform against emerging threats.

Windows Windows Windows Windows

Feature and description Server Server Server Server
2008 R2 2012 R2 2016 2019
Enhanced Windows Defender Advanced Threat
Protection (ATP): Windows Defender ATP Exploit
Guard is a new set of host intrusion prevention
capabilities such as preventative protection,
attack detection, and zero-day exploits.

© 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. The information in this document represents the current view of 7
Microsoft on the content. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.
 Windows Windows Windows Windows
Feature and description Server Server Server Server
2008 R2 2012 R2 2016 2019
Shielded VMs for Windows: use BitLocker to
encrypt disk and state for Windows OS-based
VMs.
Shielded VMs for Linux: Windows Server 2019
supports Shielded VMs for Linux to protect Linux
VMs from attacks and compromised
administrators in the underlying fabric and
extensive threat resistance components.
HGS offline mode for shielded VMs: offline
mode allows shielded VMs to turn on when HGS
cannot be reached, if the security configuration
of your Hyper-V host has not changed.
VM Connect for shielded VMs: enhances the
interactive session experience by providing a
secure console connection while interacting with
a shielded VM for Windows and Linux machines.
Cluster hardening: new clusters running
Windows Server 2019 will not require NTLM,
which completely removes the requirement of
Active Directory for clusters in Windows Server.
SDN encrypted subnet: virtual network
encryption provides the ability for the virtual
network traffic to be encrypted between VMs
that communicate with each other within
subnets.
Just-enough administration: limits
administrative privileges to the bare minimum
required set of actions (limited in space).
Just-in-time administration: provides privileged
access through a workflow that is audited and
limited in time.
Credential guard: uses virtualization-based
security to help secure credential information
against advanced persistent threats on the
system and to protect it from being stolen by a
compromised administrator or malware.
Control flow guard: helps protect against classes
of memory corruption attacks.
Remote credential guard: works in conjunction
with credential guard for Remote Desktop
Protocol (RDP) sessions to deliver single sign-on
(SSO), eliminating the need to pass credentials to
the RDP host.
Device guard (code integrity): helps ensure only
authorized executables run on the server.
Dynamic access control: enables administrators
to apply access-control permissions and
restrictions based on well-defined rules.

© 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. The information in this document represents the current view of 8
Microsoft on the content. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.
 Windows Windows Windows Windows
Feature and description Server Server Server Server
2008 R2 2012 R2 2016 2019
AppLocker: provides policy-based access control
management for applications.
BitLocker: uses a hardware or virtual Trusted
Platform Module (TPM) chip to provide disk
encryption for data and system volumes.

Faster innovation for applications

Enable developers and IT pros to create cloud native applications and modernize their traditional apps
using containers and micro-services.

Enterprises are adopting digital transformation to engage end users, offer competitive products,
empower their employees, and improve operations. To drive this transformation, developers need a
modern platform that helps them deliver innovation at the rate of changing business demands.
Windows Server 2019 can help you modernize your apps and drive innovation faster. Windows Server
2019 gives developers and operations flexibility to use traditional and container models for
application development, with prescribed solutions and artifacts in place to achieve best practices in
development and operation.

Windows Windows Windows Windows

Feature and description Server Server Server Server
2008 R2 2012 R2 2016 2019
Linux containers: manage both Windows and
Linux applications on the same environment,
reducing management overhead.
Windows Server containers: creates an isolated
application environment in which you can run an
application without fear of changes due to
applications or configuration.
Server Core base container image: reduced
Server Core base container image size will reduce
download time and further optimize the
development time and performance.
Nano Server base container image: reduced
Nano Server base container image will reduce
download time and further optimize the
development time and performance. Nano Server
base container image optimization is available
with Semi-Annual Channel updates for Windows
Server 2016. This capability comes with Windows
Server 2019 out-of-the-box.
Server Core Features on Demand: Features on
Demand (FoD) significantly improve the app
compatibility of Windows Server Core by
including a set of binaries and packages from
Windows Server with Desktop without adding
any of the Windows Server Desktop GUI or
Windows 10 GUI experiences.

© 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. The information in this document represents the current view of 9
Microsoft on the content. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.
 Windows Windows Windows Windows
Feature and description Server Server Server Server
2008 R2 2012 R2 2016 2019
Kubernetes platform support: Kubernetes
platform support with major improvements to
computing, storage, and networking
components.
Group Managed Service Accounts (gMSA):
provides a single identity solution for services
running on a server farm, or on systems behind
network load balancer. Using a gMSA, services or
service administrators do not need to manage
password synchronization between service
instances. In Windows Server 2019, gMSA
improves the scalability and reliability of
containers to access network resources.
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL): allows
developers and application administrators to use
tools in Linux environments alongside Command
Prompt and PowerShell.
Hyper-V isolation: provides a highly isolated
container environment in which the host
operating system cannot be affected in any way
by any other running container.
Azure Service Fabric for Windows Server:
enables you to create a multi-machine Azure
Service Fabric cluster in your own datacenter or
in other public clouds.
PowerShell 5.1: provides enhanced scripting
capabilities for configuration, management, and
deployment of software-defined datacenter
components.
PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC):
provides a set of PowerShell language extensions
and cmdlets to declaratively specify how you
want your software environment to be
configured.
Visual Studio Code: supports development
operations such as debugging, task running, and
version control to provide the tools a developer
needs for a quick code-build-debug cycle.
.NET Core: helps create modern web apps,
microservices, libraries, and console applications
that run on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Get Started
Take the next step. Learn more at:

• Build your future with Windows Server

www.microsoft.com/windowsserver

© 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. The information in this document represents the current view of 10
Microsoft on the content. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.